And then we went home.
As we walked down a side street I saw the loveliest white house on a hill and realized it stood only a few blocks from aunt’s. I asked what it was, and found it was the Jumel Mansion.
Some of the things had reached home before we had--those that we bought first--and it was while I was standing and gazing rapturously at that pink dress that I saw the note.
It was scrawled on my telephone pad, and it said: “Do not wear the Jumel bracelet to-day. It is my wish that you do not.--E.J.” I read it two or three times and then I went to the drawing-room. Jane was dusting, and I asked her what I wanted to know.
“Jane,” I said, “what was Madam Jumel’s first name?”
“I can’t say, miss,” she replied, “but if she is important, you’ll find her in the New York Guide, perhaps.”
I thanked her and went to look it up. And I found that Madam Jumel’s name was Eliza. . . . Well, I’d heard of spirits writing, but I hadn’t believed it before; and I really didn’t believe it then; I thought it was a joke. But I decided I would go over to the Jumel Mansion for a few moments if my aunt would let me. I felt as if I must. So I asked her, and she said I might--for “just a little while.” . . . I put on my new suit and the tam (which I had worn home), defiantly clasped that bracelet around my arm, and started.
And when I got there I found that it was open and that anyone might go in, so I did, and I did enjoy it! . . . In the first place, it is a lovely old house, and it has in it everything in the way of interesting relics that you can imagine. It was Washington’s headquarters for more than a month during the Revolution, and the room where he slept especially interested me. It proved to me that good deeds don’t die. For Washington, who did lots of them, is remembered because he always did his best and was upright and fine and true. And now--every little thing that he even touched is kept and treasured. I stood looking at the Washington relics for a long time, and then one of the curators asked me whether I would like to see the door through which the Indian braves came to pledge allegiance to Washington, and I said I would. So he showed it to me.
“Through this,” he said, “they trooped in; soft-footed, I suppose they were, since they all wore moccasins; and they carried laurel branches as an outward sign of the tune of their spirits.”
And then he told me that the British occupied the house later--they captured it November 16, 1776, to be exact--but he said there was no soft-footed approach with them. He said they were a noisy crowd who liked their ale.